Empty Larders
by tepid sponge bath
Summary: Coming home after a case, John Watson and Sherlock Holmes are a bit high on adrenaline, slightly out of breath...and very, very hungry. The cupboard, unfortunately, is bare. (Written for Challenge 1 of Let's Draw Sherlock.)


**Disclaimer:** I lay no claim to BBC's _Sherlock._ I own nothing, and I earn nothing.

**Note**: Written for the first Let's Write Sherlock challenge. True to form, I've gone with the word vomit method of writing: fast and nasty and almost certainly late.

**Empty Larders**

"That," said John sliding out of the taxi before Sherlock, "was ridiculous. And," he went on as Sherlock fumbled with his wallet to pay the cabbie, "if I had a quid for every time I've said that since we became flatmates, I would be a rich man."

"A well-off one, certainly."

"_Rich_," John insisted, on his way through the front door. "Filthy bloody rich. So rich that we could keep Mrs. Hudson in diamonds for a year."

Sherlock made a noise that attempted to make it clear that he'd really rather not say what followed it. "When I suggested that we hide in the wardrobe," he said a bit too evenly, "I couldn't have known it was already occupied. We'd still be in the clear if that young clot hadn't screamed. Idiot. The daughter's boyfriend at a guess."

"_You _couldn't have known? _You_?"

"Well, I was a bit distracted by the angry goose!" hissed Sherlock, rather like a goose himself.

John found himself attacked by a sudden fit of giggles. "The goose. Jesus. So the neighbor's goose swallowed Mrs. Morcar's pendant. I don't envy the poor sod who'll have to get it out of that bird."

"I don't envy the goose."

"There's that." John grinned at his flatmate. Neither of them had quite gotten their breath back, and Sherlock's face was still a little flushed from the cold and their mad escape dash. The doctor licked his lips. "You hungry?"

"Starving."

"Shame Mrs. Hudson isn't home. I could just about kill for one of her sarnies," said John, speaking to Sherlock's back as they climbed the stairs. "I never knew a week could be so long."

And there was 221 B in all its disorderly glory. Since Mrs. Hudson wasn't around to beat the clutter back with broom and duster, the mess had reached proportions that were very nearly epic (they would certainly have merited a saga, at least). John was of the opinion that if, by some unholy chance, their landlady decided to extend her little holiday to the Welsh countryside - she was with her sister - she would come home to find her tenants camped in the second bedroom, and would have to clear the mess out with a blow torch to reach them. Sherlock, true to form, put on a great show of not caring about this (though he complained, loudly and often, about the deplorable lack of Mrs. Hudsons at Baker Street). Indeed, all he did now was shove papers around so that there was enough space to flop down on the sofa for a good post-case sulk.

"I thought you were hungry," said John.

"Yes, I'll have what you're having."

John rolled his eyes and ducked into the kitchen. And he stayed in the kitchen for several long minutes in direct defiance of his senses, opening and re-opening cupboards and looking at the open fridge out of the corner of his eye as if he could somehow take it by surprise, until he gave up, accepted what his eyes, fingers and nose were telling him, and stormed back into the living room.

"You're having nothing," he announced.

"What?" Sherlock gave an indignant spasm, not unlike a beached fish.

"You heard me. You said you'd have what I'm having, and I, apparently, am having _nothing_. There is nothing to eat in the kitchen - in the flat, I'd wager. _How _is that even possible?"

Sherlock gave a little shrug_. Search me._

"Well, there was bread, but _someone_" - and John paused heavily so that there could be no doubt as to who that_someone_ was "- thought it would be a good idea to a sit an unsealed Petri dish full of mold next to it."

"_Aspergillus_," muttered Sherlock. "It's harmless."

"Yeah, it's also inedible. There's green stuff growing on the butter too, and I don't even want to know what that is." He gave the kitchen a wistful look. "I bought crisps and things a couple of days ago. Wotsits. Mixed nuts."

"I needed those. For an experiment."

"And my tandoori chicken? You experimented on the leftovers too?"

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably. "I ate those."

"You _ate_ them." John's voice was pained. "I was saving that, Sherlock! I put it in a sealed container and labeled it. You could've asked at least!"

"I didn't think you'd mind."

"So you needed something clearer than '_John's – Do NOT throw away OR ELSE_'?"

"But I _didn't_ throw it away. I needed to make space for the arm."

"And it's a pity we can't fry up your body parts, isn't it?" John pinched the bridge of his nose, tried to find patience, and failed. "We don't even have any tea. I think I could stand it if there was tea." He sighed. "I suppose we could break into Mrs. Hudson's flat and nick her herbal soothers, but those are awful." John paused. The word wasn't enough. He tried again. "Vile. _Evil_. Have you tried them?"

"Almost, but not quite entirely, unlike tea," acknowledged Sherlock, who stood up and began to rummage through his coat. "Hang on, I've got a packet of biscuits in here."

"What, in your emergency biscuit pocket?"

"Something like that, yes." And Sherlock upended the coat, and shook it so vigorously that, had it been sentient, it would have started confessing whatever sins Sherlock wanted it to own up to. As it was, however, all it yielded was some lint, Sherlock's scarf, a pen, several receipts, a few coins, and a sad, sticky bit of plastic that had once upon a time contained lemon sherbet. The consulting detective looked like the universe had just done him an immense personal affront. He gave his coat another shake. "But it was – it should be – _oh_." His grip on the coat relaxed as the realization hit him. "_Lestrade_."

"Sorry, what's Greg got to do with anything?"

"He has my biscuits." Sherlock reached into his jacket for his phone. "We were in his car this morning, they must have fallen out there." And his thumbs were flying, shooting off a text message that promised to be demanding and slightly vitriolic.

"And what are you going to do, make him bring them over? It's hardly worth the trouble." John picked his jacket up from his chair and shrugged it on again. "Come on. If we hurry, we might catch Angelo before he closes up."

Sherlock beat him to the stairs, and was at the door before John had managed to shrug his jacket back on. And he paused for half a heartbeat, as if listening to what was outside, before yanking the door open to reveal Lestrade, arm raised, about to knock.

"Ah, Lestrade! Just who we needed!" Sherlock sounded far too gleeful, and John didn't blame the detective inspector when he took a step backwards and away.

"Well, it's nice to see you too," he said warily. "You said to tell you if there were any developments on the Murillo case."

Sherlock drew a sharp breath, looked over his shoulder at John with a slightly torn expression. "Yes, what have you got?"

"We've found where he's been hiding. Little out-of-the-way-place, Wisteria Lodge."

John sighed as his hopes of a nice plate of tagliatelle at Angelo's withered in the face of a prospective chase. "And you need us there?" he asked, not quite succeeding to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

"Please," said Lestrade. "Murillo's been caught before, but we've never had enough evidence to hold the bastard. If you could find something incontrovertible…"

"All right." Sherlock was brusque, and he pushed past the D.I., eagerly looking up and down the street. "How are we getting there? Your car? Splendid."

It was but the work of a moment for them to pile into the vehicle. Sherlock, by virtue of his longer limbs, rode up front, and John shared the back seat with Lestrade's coat and a desultory gym bag.

"Where have you two _been_ anyway?" asked Lestrade as he turned out of Baker Street. "I've been trying to ring you all afternoon – will you stop that?" That was for Sherlock, who was twisting and turning as much as his seatbelt would allow, and, having come up with nothing in the glove compartment, had ducked down to feel beneath the seat.

"A packet of biscuits, I dropped them in here earlier, where are they?"

"Oh, those Marie biscuits. Those were yours?"

"Yes, th—what do you mean _were_?"

"I had them with my tea. Look, I didn't know they were yours, okay?" Lestrade didn't quite imply that he'd have sent them off to the bomb squad if he'd known who they belonged to, but it was a close thing. His face in the rearview mirror looked slightly more worried than usual, and John was prepared to take odds on whether the D.I. was going through a mental checklist of all his systems, starting with the digestive.

"You could have texted," said Sherlock darkly.

"I wasn't about to go around texting people to find out who'd left biscuits in _my _car."

"So you just put it down to the magical car biscuit fairy, then?"

"Oh, for God's sake—"

"Sorry, ignore him, he's hungry." John prodded Sherlock warningly on the shoulder to make him stop too. "So'm I, as a matter of fact. Could we, um, stop for takeaway somewhere?"

Lestrade cast a glance at the little illuminated clock on the dashboard. "Nope. Sorry, guys, this is time sensitive stuff. Strictly speaking, I shouldn't even have left, but I had to find you."

"Ah." John was prepared not to mind, really he was - there were more important things after all, and he'd gone longer without a meal - but his stomach chose that moment to give an almighty growl. Lestrade swiveled around in alarm. Sherlock glowered, ostensibly at something outside the window.

"Oh, Christ," said the D.I. "Look, Donovan's going to be there. She's usually good for a doughnut or something on a stakeout."

Sergeant Donovan was there when they got to the little house facing Wisteria Lodge (the owners had been convinced of the urgency and danger of the situation, and had been persuaded to skip town). She had her customary sneer for Sherlock, something a bit friendlier for John, and an incredulous look for Lestrade when he asked if she had any food on her.

"Sorry, do I look like I do the catering?" she asked crossly, without taking her eyes from the window. "You brought them along, _you _feed them." And she stared stonily into her binoculars to kill the conversation where it stood.

The silence that followed was uncomfortable, and it did not help that the room was, by necessity, dark. After a while, though, Donovan sighed noisily and handed the binoculars over to Lestrade.

"Sorry," she said to all of them, though she somehow managed to convey that there was less of it for Sherlock. "I haven't had anything since breakfast either, and that was something horrible that my flatmate does with kidneys." She stretched and turned to the D.I. "Stan Hopkins has a team in the house at back, sir. He checked in ten minutes ago, nothing's happened yet."

And with that Donovan went to stand next to John, who tried to edge sideways surreptitiously. "Look," she said, "I really am sorry. You know how he gets my wind up," she added in a lower voice, nodding at Sherlock who had gone to crouch down next to Lestrade. She dug into the pocket of her coat. "I know it's not strictly food, but I've got some gum. It helps sometimes, you know, just chewing."

John refused politely on the grounds that putting something in his mouth that he wasn't actually going to eat wouldn't make him feel any better. Sherlock, when asked, took a stick, sniffed it, and began to chew sullenly.

Headlights flooded the street. The four of them held their breath, but the car did nothing more than drive past. Donovan noted the make and the license plate anyway, and radioed Hopkins about it.

"Would anybody mind if I made us some tea?" asked John, when nothing more eventful happened.

"Don't even think about it," said Lestrade. He had pulled an ottoman over to the window so he could crouch down in relative comfort. "This is a private residence, this is, and I'm not having you raiding the larders on my watch."

"I'll replace the stuff," promised John earnestly, already sneaking towards the kitchen. "Or pay them back, if they'd prefer."

"There's no point," called Donovan as he disappeared through the doorway. "There's nothing there, not even salt. Just some sort of strange vitamin water. I looked when we first went through the house," she explained, in response to Lestrade's exasperated look and Sherlock's amused one. "Health nuts on a purge is my guess."

A strangled cry came from where John was investigating the kitchen. "You mean masochists on a diet! These are Mrs. Hudson's herbal soothers!"

"There aren't even any leftovers," John complained, emerging from the kitchen. "I mean, I'm used to that" – he gave his flatmate a dark look, which Sherlock returned – "and at least there aren't any bits of dead people, but what sort of people don't keep food in the house? Even the health nuts I know manage a protein bar at the very least. Or celery. I thought these types were very keen on celery."

"I wonder how it is at Hopkins's house," said Donovan wistfully.

"Yes, why couldn't we have stayed at the other house?" put in Sherlock, staring hard at Lestrade. "Murillo's a man on the run, he's more likely to use the back entrance."

"What, you're blaming _me_?"

"You ate my biscuits."

"Will you give it a _rest_!"

"_Boys_," said John.

Another car went past. This one was yellow, and Sherlock had a few choice things to say about its occupants that made even Donovan bite back a laugh.

"At this point," announced John, when the glow from the taillights disappeared, "I would kill for a fairy cake."

"A fairy cake?"

"A fairy cake," confirmed John. "Even one of those horrible pink ones that always seem to be the last ones out of the box."

The others contemplated this.

"I'd like bubble and squeak," said Donovan finally. "Nice and greasy."

"A bacon sandwich," said Lestrade. "The proper kind that makes your arteries go _'clang!_' just looking at it. With brown sauce and negligible veg. What about you, Sherlock?"

"I just want my biscuits."

"Jesus-!"

"Toad-in-the-hole," said John, thereby averting a small war. "Been a while since I last had that."

"I saw that on _Nigella Kitchen _yesterday," volunteered Donovan. "She took the sausages apart and fried them."

"Oh God, Nigella." John made a small, not-entirely-appropriate noise. "All right, since we're just wishing anyway, Mrs. Hudson's been talking about doing a Christmas roast, so that turkey of hers, only maybe we could use a certain goose instead, eh, Sherlock?"

"She's the one with the leftovers, isn't she?" said Sherlock absently, taking the binoculars from Lestrade. "What?" he said when he noticed the funny looks the Yarders were giving him. "John watches the program, and I stay in the room."

"Those leftovers, though," said John dreamily. "God, I'd love to raid that fridge."

"She'd probably have biscuits."

"Sherlock, I swear to God-!"

"Pizza!" John shouted frantically.

"Curry!" cried Donovan, quickly catching on.

Chapter

They went through a few more rounds ("A burger." "Jam tarts." "Laksa." "Biscuits." "Angelo's tagliatelle." "Pie, any kind, really." "Cockles. They're nice." "Oysters." "Biscuits." "Cream tea." "Apple crumble." "I could murder a kebab." "Biscuits." "Treacle tart." "Beans on toast." "How do you guys feel about pad thai?" "Biscuits." "Noodle soup." "I had this fantastic stuff once, can't remember what it was called, some sort of rice porridge..." "Biscuits." "Jerk chicken." "Pork chops." "Biscuits." "Minnestrone." "_Biscuits_."), and it wasn't an entirely bad way to pass the time, though part of the game seemed to be seeing how long it took for Lestrade to permanently ban Sherlock from his crime scenes.

After a while, however, the consulting detective was persuaded to drop the matter ("All right," John had said, heartily wishing that he was fed instead of just fed up, "if you're not going to stop being stupid about your stupid biscuits, _I want my tandoori back_."). Whether this was actually an improvement was debatable, as all Sherlock did, following a brief period where he sat stunned like a dog that had been smacked on the nose, was transfer his fixation to Mrs. Hudson's breakfasts. He was making them all groan by going on, for the fifth time, about the one she did with the mushrooms and the cheese when Donovan's radio mercifully crackled to life with Hopkins reporting that Murillo was letting himself in through Wisteria Lodge's back door.

Sherlock stopped waxing poetic about toasted cheese, unfolded himself from the floor beside Lestrade's ottoman. "I told you he'd use the back!" he said smugly, and he would have bolted if the D.I. hadn't grabbed him by the coat.

"Oh no, you don't," said Lestrade, with a firmness and impatience unusual in his dealings with Sherlock, perhaps brought on by the man's maddening obsession with his biscuits. "Murillo's smart, he's going to use every loophole he can wiggle out of. We're doing this by the _book_."

Whatever book they did do it by, it wasn't the one Lestrade had in mind. Murilllo was surprised, apprehended, lost for a bit, and finally concussed by Sergeant Hopkins quite literally throwing the book at him, or rather dropping one on his head as he tried to sneak out past the balcony of the other house. (Sherlock congratulated the young man on his aim. Lestrade buried his face in his hands and wished that someone else would handle the paperwork.)

No matter how the man had been caught and bundled indelicately into the back of a squad car, however, the fact remained that Sherlock found a very damning stash in a hidden cupboard in the upstairs bathroom. There was also a much more damning body - or possibly bodies - in a locked filing cabinet in the basement. Sherlock was delighted, and pointed out that the fingers were filed under 'F.' John chose the moment to step away and speak to Donovan about the possibility of them all getting a bite to eat while Anderson shooed them away from the crime scene.

"Oh God," he said, making a face as he fiddled with the settings on his camera. "That's put me right off my dinner."

Heads swiveled.

"Did you say 'dinner'?" asked John tentatively.

"Yes, I did," said Anderson testily, taking a shot of the cabinet. "I packed myself a couple of sandwiches, and I haven't eaten them yet, and thanks to Murillo's work here, I don't think I want them anymore."

"Sandwiches?" queried Donovan.

"Yes, sandwiches. No, don't _touch_ that, you clot!" That last was for a junior member of the forensics team who had rather unwisely moved a suspicious-looking toolbox.

"What kind of sandwiches?" said Lestrade, who had been caught halfway up the stairs.

"Bacon." Anderson went over to the filing cabinet and pulled a half-open drawer all the way out. "Eurgh. You're welcome to them if you'd like. They're in my car." He opened a second drawer, swallowed heavily, and dutifully snapped another photograph. "You can have the biscuits too."

Sherlock made a small noise. Anderson turned to him wearing a thoroughly peeved expression. "Okay, whatever it is, just say it. Get it over with. Some of us," he said, "actually have work to do."

And he took a step backwards as the consulting detective bore down on him, tried and failed to avoid being grasped by the shoulders, and flinched at the look on Sherlock's face. The man looked like he'd swallowed a lemon, or possibly he was coming to terms with having accidentally swallowed Donovan's gum.

"Anderson," he said, slowly and deliberately, "You are uniquely unobservant for someone in your line of work - you completely missed the stain on the wall over there - but" - he drew a long breath through clenched teeth - "today you are brilliant. Thank you." Anderson goggled at him, and Sherlock gave his head a little shake as if to clear all that out of his system. "Now, give me your car keys, and what kind of biscuits are they?"

Notes:

And this was me trying to write something that was not porn! I do apologize for my apparent fixation on geese (I don't seem to have moved on from Cabin Pressure's Uskerty episode), and I _might_ have carried the biscuit thing a bit too far. Sorry!

I stole bits of story from _The Blue Carbuncle_ and _Wisteria Lodge_ from ACD canon, and Hopkins is from _The Golden Pince-Nez_. Lines have also been lifted from _The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_ (and if you haven't heard the audiobook of that as narrated by Martin Freeman, look for it, it is glorious).

And, er, since there was food involved, I couldn't resist dragging Nigella Lawson into this fic. I am very much a fan, and, what with all that nastiness that went down a few weeks ago, I do hope she's all right.


End file.
